Situation in the OPT – CHR debate – Letter from Israel

QUESTION OF THE VIOLATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS IN THE

OCCUPIED ARAB TERRITORIES, INCLUDING PALESTINE

Letter dated 17 March 1997 from the Permanent Representative

of Israel to the United Nations Office at Geneva addressed to

the Chairman of the Commission on Human Rights

When the Palestinian Observer delegate to the Commission on Human Rights makes the hideous charge, as he did on 11 March, that Israel injected 300 Palestinian children with the HIV (AIDS) virus during the “Intifada” period, one is bound to wonder about the man and his motives.

First, the “facts”, such as they are.  On 23 January of this year, the Cairo daily, al­Ahram, ran a preposterous story of the kind cited by the Palestinian Observer, from an obscure news agency, referencing an Israeli newspaper, Yediot Aharonot.  Four days later, al­Ahram printed a full retraction on its front page, admitting that the report was completely false and that nothing of the kind had appeared in Yediot Aharonot.

The Palestinian Observer's callous manipulation of this despicable libel is revealing.  Not only can the man not be taken seriously, but he apparently advocates the well­tried technique of the “big lie”.

I should be grateful if you could arrange to have this letter circulated as an official document of the fifty­third session of the Commission on Human Rights.

(Signed)  Yosef LAMDAN

Ambassador

Permanent Representative

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chr.hiv